"How did you?"
The old man blinked, yanked away from his contemplation of a growing Truffula tree by the innocent question of a fifteen year old girl. "What?" His voice, gruff from years of breathing smog was a harsh contrast to her own sweet voice.
"How did you get that last seed?"
That… It was…
The Once-ler's mind crashed to a halt as he realized, he couldn't remember. It just appeared one day, sitting on his table, inconsequential and forgotten about until the factories had shut down. "I… I don't remember. There was… A hat? Or was it… A cat. I remember a cat. A Cat in a Hat."
Ted leaned forward, eyes practically sparkling in delight. "A Cat in a Hat? Like the Lorax?" One hand gestured to where the forest guardian napped in the shade, a Bar-ba-loot curled on a fuzzy orange stomach.
A smile graced Once-ler's face, hidden by the fuzzy gray mustache. "Not quite though. He seemed… perhaps more scattered then the Lorax."
The Once-ler stood, stretching slightly. "Anyways, I have to clean out my Lurkim. The Swoome-swans are using my bowls as nests. Again."
The old man shuffled off, as Ted and Audrey sat back to back, staring up at the sky. "A cat. In a hat."
Once-ler frowned at his hands. Why can't I remember?
He should be able to remember, it was there, tickling at the back of his brain. A quiet little reminder that the seed was given to him. But by whom? And when?
There was a hat in his office. Once-ler frowned at the hat. It was tall, with red and white stripes. There were a few dents here and there, but it looked well worn and handled with care. "That's odd," Said Once-ler, "But it doesn't belong here in this office."
With a shrug he had left it, ignored that old hat, when all of a sudden, there was a cat!
"Well, how disappointing, how disappointing indeed! You're not really a good thinker, are you my boy? No matter- the stage must be set! There are things to do, and so little time. There's a story here, so sad and so painful… perhaps, just perhaps may one day end happy."
"Who- no, what are you?" Once-ler glanced at the doorway- with a single call he could have his guards appear, have them take away this Cat. But something was stopping him. It was as if time was on hold.
"What am I? I am Cat in the Hat." The Cat smiled as he picked up a round paperweight in one hand, juggling it lazily. "You know, I can read with my eyes shut."
"Yeah, right. What are you doing here?"
"Me, Oh, I'm just visiting! If you want me to leave, all you have to do is say. I'll leave right away, but don't throw me out quite yet! It'll be something you may regret."
"You do realize you're talking in rhyme, right?" Once-ler questioned sarcastically. "And if you'd go so quietly, how did you get in?"
"Oh, intermission break really. I was reading your story, when I realized you were missing an essential prop!"
Once-ler stopped dead in the doorway of his home. That Cat… oh, that cat. He was the one who had given him the seed.
Pieces of the memory, distorted as if he were watching it through a old filmstrip fell into place.
"Intermission? What od you think this is, some kind of story?"
"Isn't life but a stage and all the people on it actors? True, this story is shaping up to be a fine tragedy, but only because you forgot one little prop. I came to give it to you." A white paw closed, and popped open again, a single brown thing lying on it.
"What is that?" Once-ler asked in curiosity, before shaking his head. "Never mind, it's not important. I have work to do."
The smile slipped right off the Cat in the Hats face. "You don't know? You really don't know? My boy, your thinker is in need of an adjustment."
"My what?"
"Ah never mind. You're lucky I like happy endings where everyone can be happy, otherwise I wouldn't be here at all. The only other endings I can see aren't happy, not one little bit."
"Get out!"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said get out! You said you'd leave if I asked you too, So I'll ask right now, get out!"
The Cat in the Hat stared at him for a very long moment. "You haven't been back to your home recently, have you?"
"No, I'm too busy. What does that have to do with anything?"
"Nothing, nothing. Nothing of importance for you."
The cat doffed his hat. "I'll be letting myself out then." He casually placed that brown thing upon the shelf. "By the way, this is a Truffula seed."
Once-ler watched him go, mind swimming in confusion. The cat's head peeked back in from a window. "I think it best if you don't remember this conversation, don't you?"
The very next day he entered his office to find the Lorax sitting out along the railing, looking to the skies.
"I forgot. I really did forget." Stunned disbelief crossed Once-ler's face as he stood in the door of his Lurkim, staring blankly at the empty room… well, not so empty room. There was a Swoome-swan nesting in his bowl, and two Humming Fish splashing happily away in his cups.
"Why did I forget?"
He had completely forgotten, and when he first entered his Lurkim after the factories had been shut down… it was dark. And lonesome. There was nobody around; everyone had left him. Even Melvin… which hurt most of all.
He could expect the Lorax to leave, but not Melvin. Not his best friend, a mule who had been with him for years.
But there he had stood, alone in the Lurkim, and there on the table, a thin layer of dust coating it, lay a single Truffula Seed.
"I thought the Lorax had left it. But… he didn't. Why not?"
"He isn't that sort of guy." The purring voice spoke softly, as a hat rolled its way past the table. The Cat was nowhere to be seen.
"What the- what do you mean by that?"
"He isn't the type to meddle so far. Why, if it were up to him, there would be no seed. Then the story would be very sad indeed." The cat came rolling in, balancing on a ball, while juggling a cake and a rake. "Well, I can't really bear sad stories, they make me cry, and so I went to a boy who can think, and asked him to think up a way to make a happy ending."
"The seed."
"That's right." The Cat in the Hat smiled, which quickly vanished as the cake fell to the floor. He instantly looked just the littlest bit guilty as he pushed it out the door. "My old friend the Lorax wouldn't give it to you. He's far too accepting for that. And well… he's far too much like the Earth itself to do such a thing."
"So he didn't believe in me." Once-lers voice went completely flat, and he swallowed the bitter lump of disappointment in his throat. Of course not. There was no reason for the Lorax to trust him.
The Cat in the Hat looked briefly surprised and troubled. "I'm sure he would've left it to you if he'd only known, but you know, he isn't a great thinker. Few people are. I'm a lucky Cat in that thinkers are wherever I go. But he didn't Think of it, and neither did you."
"Then what did he think of me then?" Once-ler questioned cautiously.
He was finally beginning to get a feel for this crazed being; honest in a sly sort of way. More then willing to stir up trouble.
"Now, I can hardly speak for the Lorax, now can I?" The Cat questioned back, the tiniest grin appearing on his face, "But… perhaps… an infestation would be the best guess? Feeding and feeding, overwhelming the forest until nothing was there. And then, the infestation, having eaten all of its food, would slowly starve to death."
"That is not a happy ending." He could imagine it, in his minds eye. Him out here in the cold wasteland, watching the valley become more and more polluted, without even a seed to carry his hope.
The Lorax would've never come back.
"Well, mind you, after those that infested the forest have all died off, everything else can fall back into place. Slowly but surely, the plants would spring up again. Animals would return. As for the infestation itself? Dead, consumed by its own greed."
Now he knew the Cat was laughing at him, practically rubbing his face in his own human mistakes. "That's enough Cat in the Hat." The firm, dry voice of the Lorax broke across the painful silence. "You know full well it wasn't like that."
"Ah, but he asked me a way you might think. I did give him a way."
The Lorax glared at the taller creature, which sighed dramatically, paw flopping across his eyes. "Then I shall leave now! Adieu to all of you!"
With that he pulled the hat down, and disappeared completely from sight. For a moment, the hat hovered in mid-air, before vanishing with a quiet pop.
Once-ler took a deep, steadying breath, leaning against the table. The fuzzy orange bean of a Lorax stood quietly in the doorway, forest green eyes staring directly into his own. "You didn't leave that seed."
"No, I didn't." Lorax agreed.
Eyes closed in pain. The Lorax really didn't- "I asked the Cat in the Hat to do it for me instead. I didn't think you'd want to see me."
Oh.
"You asked?"
Lorax shrugged. "We've known each other for a long, long time. I couldn't see a way for this to end happy for any of us, and Since the Cat in the Hat specializes in these sorts of stories…."
"Stories of greed and destruction?" Bitter. So very bitter and tired.
"Hey, I never said he was Mother Goose now did I? He'll scare you with tales of the Vug in the Rug, tell you of the battle of the Butter-sides who fight each other about which way bread should be buttered. He'll introduce you to the Fox in Socks who will throw you into dangerous situations without batting an eye. If you've got time you should ask him about Horton the Elephant and Whoville who nearly had their entire world boiled. He doesn't exactly deal in clean stories."
Lorax's arms crossed as his voice remained carefully even throughout the whole speech. Once-ler watched him, watching right back. "So he deals in stories like ours. We really are just a story to him."
"Everything is a story to him." The orange guardian of the forest sighed, looking back out across the re-emerging forest. "He's actually a good fellow."
"Like you are?"
"I wouldn't call myself that."
"But you're back, aren't you?" his voice took on just the barest of trembles, a plea to his friend to remain.
"For a short time." Once-ler's breath about near stopped, right along with his heart. "I'll have to seek out the Swoome-swans, and the Bar-ba-loots, and the humming fish. Tell them that it's safe to come back. They'll only accept it from me after all."
"Take me with you." The words were out of his mouth before he even registered what he was saying, but he didn't regret them, not even for a minute.
"Huh?"
"Take me with you. Don't leave me alone."
"Hey, bean sprout, I'll have you know, those two kids out there woke me up to go after you because they were worried. I hardly think you'll be alone."
"Don't go." Once upon a time, pride would keep him form saying such a thing. As an old man without much time left, he didn't really have hang-ups like pride anymore. "Take me with you."
A small hand rested on his knee, green eyes furrowing in confusion staring up at him. "Hey, I'll be back much quicker. I always know where my forest creatures are. I'm not leaving forever."
"It's… It's dangerous out there you know."
"Uh-huh."
The Lorax and the Once-ler stared each other directly in the eyes. At last, beneath an impressive yellow mustache, a mouth twitched into a smile. "All right kiddo, we'll go together."
He half-expected it, but was still surprised when he was swept up into a powerful hug. The smile on the Lorax's face grew, as he hugged back. It was great to be home.
a/n: I based my Cat in the Hat on the Seussical, an actually well put-together play. At least, I rather like it. Anyways, this story... died on me. Like, twice, or three times. But I chugged on through. Hopefully it makes sense. You guys will tell me if it doesn't, right?